Or maybe it's the price you put on your own time, compared to what you can sell your skills for elsewhere ?

Perhaps you have an eye on your own immortality and consider the added value you are bringing into the world by your creative endeavours - in which case, that's a valuation that's best left to the ages.

But what if the creative process actually lowers or destroys the perceived value of the source material ?

The most famous instance was probably when Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty burned one million pound sterling in 1994. They followed that by touring a short film of the burning and producing a book, while the ashes from the cash went to form a single house brick. You can read more about that here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Foundation_Burn_a_Million_Quid.

Slightly less costly but more recent and closer to home, a life-sized papier mache sculpture, "The Paper Boy", currently on display in Sheffield, has been inadvertently manufactured from recycled newsprint that had an alleged resale value of over £20,000. One commentator has said it would have been cheaper to produce the work from Italian marble but it's creator, Andrew Vickers, retains a sense of perspective and says "to be honest I'm shocked but money has not got such a value to me. I think it is funny. I really love the idea of me creating something out of such expensive things
that's worth less. I think it's brilliant."

The story broke on the BBC at the weekend. Click through the links below to read more